Just 89 patients have signed up to a scheme allowing them to contact their GP
by email, in another setback for the Department of Health’s disastrous IT
strategy.

Only 36 doctors have joined the pilot projects, while one practice dropped out and one of the planned initiatives was abandoned.

Some medics have raised concerns that any correspondence has to be laboriously added to patients’ notes, while others say they do not have time to answer emails after a day of consultations in the surgery.

It is the latest blow to the decade-old £11billion National Programme for IT in the NHS, the biggest such project in the world.

Ministers are under pressure to abandon the £7bn focus of the scheme, computerising all patients’ medical records, because of delays and technical problems.

Under a linked plan, called HealthSpace, patients were to be allowed to view their own notes online as well as keep track of hospital appointments.

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But only 3,000 patients signed up for advanced accounts and just a handful use it each month.

New figures obtained by Pulse, a trade journal, disclose that an initiative to let patients send secure electronic messages to their doctor has been even less popular.

Under the Communicator system set up in 2009, anyone with an advanced account could have also asked to take part in pilots at six sites across England.

An online guide states: "HealthSpace Communicator is a secure messaging service enabling you to send and receive electronic messages (plus attachments) to your local healthcare staff.

"You can use HealthSpace Communicator to send non-urgent messages, for example to ask for general advice about a health condition, or to share documents such as pre-consultation questionnaires."

But the Department of Health says that only 89 people are trying it out, along with 36 GPs.

NHS Salford, expected to be one of the pilots, told Pulse it decided not to take part “due to reasons relating to information governance”.

A practice in Harrow, north west London, dropped out after the GP leading the scheme left.

Vikki Young, IT manager at the surgery, said: “You can’t merge it into our existing medical records, so whatever is communicated, every single message, needs to be printed and scanned onto the records.”

Just last month the medical director of the NHS, Prof Sir Bruce Keogh, said he wanted more doctors to use new technology to communicate with patients. This could involve using Skype, the internet-based phone service, as well as email.

“I am looking at how we can put levers into the system to encourage doctors to do online consultations,” he said.

“Once you have online consultations, it breaks down geographical boundaries. It opens up the spectre of 24/7 access.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Proposals to make the type of service provided by HealthSpace Communicator more widely available are being considered as part of the forthcoming Information Strategy.

"This is in the context of efforts across Government to make it easier for patients and citizens to easily and securely access services that meet their needs."